


The Long Broken Arm of Human Law

by pressdbtwnpages



Category: Jonas Brothers
Genre: Jonas Brothers Big Bang, M/M, jbbb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-19
Updated: 2010-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pressdbtwnpages/pseuds/pressdbtwnpages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after tragedy strikes them, Joe, Nick, and Kevin are reclusive shadows of their former selves. While each of them copes in his own way, the slowly healing brothers realize that all they have left is each other and that is all they need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Several people need to be thanked for their support. [info]elterriblefizzy, [info]tellcincinnati, and [info]inthenameofjuc were all patient, cheerleaders, and let me talk things through with them even as I refused to let them see the story. [info]siren_mage helped me with my writing freakouts and betaed a draft of this even though she isn't in the fandom and hates Joe. This story wouldn't exist without the help of [info]blueandbrady who started brainstorming with me in January, betaed in insane detail TWICE, and has listened to me rant and rave innumerably. Any and all remaining mistakes are mine alone.

The barfly gets a firm grip on Joe's collar and hurls him out of the bar and headfirst into a brick wall. The painful sudden impact knocks the wind out of him and makes Joe's vision go gray, made even dimmer by the poorly lit parking lot. His instinct is to call out for help, instead Joe reminds himself that he wants this fight and does his best to twist himself into a position where he can face his opponent and better defend himself.

He lands a few solid punches to the face and torso of the jerk who started this brawl and as he's circling the guy to try to get in a kidney punch, a vicious kick to Joe's left knee has his legs out from under him. Before he knows quite what has happened, Joe is on the ground taking kicks to his head and torso. Something snaps painfully in his chest.

Joe closes his eyes and, picturing the compassionate faces of Nick and Kevin, focuses on taking shuddery breaths. Once it becomes apparent that all the fight has gone out of Joe, the other guy takes off.

After a few more minutes of breathing slow and calm, trying not to think about how he is lying outside of the seedy bar he had been hanging out in twenty minutes ago and inhaling the scent of dirt and hot asphalt, Joe pulls out his cell phone and hits speed dial number one.

"Nick, it's me," he groans as he drags himself to the brick wall of the bar so that he can sit and lean against it while he waits for his brother. The brick scrapes through his shirt at the tender flesh of Joe's back, and he can feel blood trickling sluggishly down the side of his face. He's probably quite a sight right now, he bets that his millions of former fans wouldn't recognize him like this.

Joe's pretty sure he doesn't lose consciousness while he waits for Nick, but his world has narrowed to his pain and the dim glow of the streetlight casting his shadow.

It seems like hardly any time has passed before Nick is kneeling at Joe's side, shaking his shoulder. Absently, Joe wonders just how fast Nick was driving. Even through the pain, Nick's touch sends a current of attraction through Joe's body giving him goosebumps, a sensation that somehow overrides his injuries.

Carefully, Nick helps him to stand, strong arms supporting Joe. The embrace hurts, even though Joe is grateful for his little brother's strength and presence. He is stiff and sore, his head throbs, and he can't put any weight onto his left knee. Joe knows he should be ashamed of the way he goes lax, forcing Nick to half carry him to the flashy sports car Nick has parked a few steps away, but Joe can't be anything but comforted by Nick's proximity and protection.

He deposits Joe in the clean, soft passenger seat of a car that years later still hasn't lost its factory fresh smell before sliding into the driver's seat and running a hand through his tidy curls.

"So," Nick sighs heavily, "Did you have fun on your night out?"

Joe groans and halfheartedly tries to wipe blood out of his eyes with his hands. He can't deny that it really wasn't one of his more successful evenings. "You win some, you lose some."

"Yeah, but, Joe -" Joe's sure Nick is about to raise some very valid points about the life choices Joe has been making lately, or possibly just make a snide comment about how he loses way more than he wins, but right now Joe's entire body is in agony. It feels like he might also have dislocated a shoulder on top of everything else. He just wants to go home, have Kevin patch him up, and sleep for a hundred years.

"Can we just go home, Nick? Please?" Joe looks over at his brother who is staring out the windshield.

Nick doesn't answer, but he does start the car. Joe can feel him radiating disappointment and it is a long silent drive back to the house.

High in the hills, home is a too big, too cold art deco masterpiece that is a dark, foreboding place by night and is little better by day. When they arrive the door is already open, silhouetting a waiting Kevin poised for action against almost painfully bright light.

He hurries up to the passenger side door before Nick has turned off the engine and eases Joe out of the car with practiced efficiency.

"You look like you lost a fight," he observes teasingly, though his eyes are sharp and his face is creased with worry.

"Nothing you can't fix up," Joe says lightly, laying his bloody head against Kevin's shoulder, seeking comfort careless of the stains he might be leaving. He and his brothers have been marked by so much blood already that another streak or two will hardly make a difference.

"Maybe if you spent less time picking fights with losers in bars and dating 18 year old starlets, Kevin wouldn't have to keep putting you back together," Nick says, coming around to help Kevin get Joe into the house. There isn't a lot of sting in Nick's words.

"It was one date. For appearances sake. Last week," Joe grumbles back, avoiding the real issue. He maneuvers his injured shoulder and busted knee so that he can be of some use in getting himself into the house and down to the infirmary, but mostly his brothers carry him and he lets them, trying to make the going as easy as he can given the massive amount of pain he's in.

Joe's not sure who had the bright idea to put the infirmary in the basement, but it definitely wasn't one of their best ideas. Every stair-step jars his injured body, and his brothers have to support a fully grown man down steep, dim concrete steps.

He thinks they stowed the infirmary down here because all three of them like to imagine that they are Batman, though the official line is probably that someone might have wondered about the room if it were located upstairs. As if anyone ever visits the Jonas mansion.

In glaring contrast to the dark stairway, the infirmary is bright white, well-stocked and sterile.

Nick and Kevin lower Joe onto an exam table.

"Where does it hurt?" Nick asks while Kevin opens drawers and assembles a tray of bandages and medical equipment. Joe isn't excited to see Kevin add a needle to the pile amongst the slings and topical anesthetic. He has every intention of fighting Kevin on the idea that he needs stitches.

"Shoulder, ribs, knee," Joe recites, listing his ailments in order from head to toe. "I'm probably banged up other places too."

Kevin faces Joe with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a gauze pad. He takes first Joe's right hand and then his left, scouring any cuts he finds until every bit of broken glass and asphalt is gone. The stinging sensation is as cathartic as ever. It feels like a benediction as Joe recites his sins.

Joe perches awkwardly as Nick and Kevin gently tug off his jeans and shoes in well-rehearsed motions. The shiver that wracks Joe's body is from far more than the chill of the infirmary. While Kevin works to tend the injuries to his legs, Nick eyes Joe's shirt.

"Can you lift your arms?" He asks doubtfully.

The answer is "no", but Joe makes a halfhearted attempt anyway. Nick sighs and grabs the suture scissors off of Kevin's tray.

Joe likes this t-shirt, but he doesn't protest when Nick cuts into it at the neck and then tears the rest of the fabric away.

Nick's knuckles graze Joe's abdomen and heavy anticipatory pause fills the room as all three of them cease their actions.

Joe savors the stillness along with the implication that his brothers want what he wants for as long as it lasts, until Kevin stands and, seeing the scratches crisscrossing Joe's back, tuts with displeasure.

"That's mostly from the wall," Joe tells Kevin inanely. Kevin doesn't respond except to scrub harder at the skin. " _Ow._ "

"Stop being a baby, Joseph." Nick says, shaking his head vigorously, as if to clear away the lingering traces of the spell that has just overtaken them all.

"I'm not." Joe wants to protest further but he is so exhausted suddenly. He slumps forward, resting his head against Nick's collarbone. That's three shirts Joe has ruined tonight.

After a few moments he feels Nick sigh and then fingers are pushing through his hair. Joe could fall asleep just like this.

"Alright, Joe. I need to see that cut on your head," Kevin announces.

Nick steps away and Joe bites down the protest he wants to make.

Kevin comes to stand in front of him and dabs at the blood on Joe's temple carefully. "At least you didn't mess up your face."

"Why? Wouldn't love me if I wasn't pretty anymore?" Joe tries to smirk, but he only makes it halfway before it turns into a grimace. It's hard to be anything but serious and a little bit scared while your older brother performs serious first-aid on you. Joe isn't completely sure how their lives came to this, but here they are, hiding from the whole world, even doctors.

Kevin ignores him, throwing the bloody gauze away and picking up the needle. Suddenly Joe is wide awake again.

"Really, Kevin?" Joe complains. There is something about watching his brother sew his skin shut that disturbs Joe deeply. Not to mention the fact that Joe's pretty sure it's a totally unnecessary procedure. A few butterfly bandages will close the cut right up. "Stitches? It's just a tiny cut above my hairline. It's not a big deal."

Kevin glares at him. "I could glue it, if you'd prefer that."

Joe holds the hand not attached to his dislocated shoulder up in surrender. "I just don't think it needs to be treated."

Once again Kevin ignores him, dabbing anesthetic along the wound. He's gotten good at stitching up Joe's injuries. A few passes of the needle and he's done. It almost doesn't hurt at all, Joe's throbbing shoulder masking most of the pain.

"Ready for me to set the shoulder?"

Joe reaches for Nick automatically and laces the fingers of his free hand with his younger brother's when Nick slips his hand into Joe's. "Do it."

Kevin positions Joe's arm with familiarity and doesn't flinch when it pops back into place. Joe does.

"There's nothing to be done about the bruises, the ribs, or the knee tonight," Kevin says as he tidies up the infirmary. Joe still hasn't let go of Nick's hand. "Nick and I will help you up to bed and we'll put a brace on it in the morning. You're probably going to have to rock a cane at the thing tomorrow."

"The thing?" Joe asks. He doesn't remember there being a thing, but that's not all that unusual.

Nick wiggles his hand in Joe's as if to gesture but he doesn't let go of Joe to make the movement. "It's a charity afternoon for kids with... cancer? I think. Maybe heart problems."

Joe is all for charity, but he's going to hurt in the morning. Trotting around playing man about town doesn't sound remotely like fun.

"C'mon," Nick tugs gently at Joe's arm. "Let's get you to bed."

*

It's loud and dark. There's noise right above him, mechanical grinding and the high terrified whimpers of his family. More distantly he hears the screams of excited girls and a rock concert being performed above his head. He's never had this particular nightmare before, but Joe knows how it ends. He wonders if he's dying too.

Joe is tied to a piece of machinery, bound, he knows with dream-logic, along with his family. Next to him Dani is sobbing and shouting long tears streaming down her face and shining through the darkness as she struggles at the ropes wrapped too-tightly around her midsection. On Joe's other side, he can barely make out Frankie, paralyzed with terror. Joe only knows that his baby brother is still breathing because he has already heard this story. He cannot see his parents, but he knows that they are there, dying just out of his sight.

The ropes get tighter. Joe joins his family in screaming.

The pressure around his waist gets tighter still and then he wakes up.

*

Joe gasps awake, sucking in breaths of air as if he has surfaced from the depths of the ocean instead of from a dream.

Kevin's arm is wrapped tight around Joe's stomach and Nick is stroking his hair, whispering soothing things into his ear.

It's morning and he's in their bed. Their big, white bed with clean sheets and soft comforters.

"You're okay, Joe," Nick says, lips moving against Joe's ear. But Joe can hear the relief in his voice. Feels his younger brother lean his forehead against the side of Joe's head.

Kevin doesn't say anything, just wriggles closer, taking and giving comfort by proximity. The solid pressure of Kevin at Joe's side makes him wince. He has no desire to have Kevin to move, but, _ow_. He shifts like he's going to roll away from Joe. Joe grips his wrist and Kevin settles back in.

"I hurt," Joe grumbles, because though it's not the first thing on his mind, or even the third, it's the only one he's willing to express to his brothers. They don't need to know the contents of his nightmare, art imitating life.

Nick huffs unhappily but he pulls away from Joe slightly. "You have to stop doing this, Joe. You got seriously hurt last night."

Joe opens his mouth to object - to point out that it doesn't matter, not really, but what's the point in doing this if the bad guys really are going to get away in the end anyway - only Kevin cuts him off, voice husky from sleep and lack of use.

"Can this at least wait until after we've changed your bandages?"

Joe shuts his mouth and nods obediently. He understands that he scared Kevin and Nick pretty badly last night. That it isn't fair, given everything. So he'll shut up and let his brothers take care of him the way they need to. At least for now.

"We've got that thing at the children's hospital this afternoon," Nick says.

Joe groans. "Can't we get out of it?"

"What would you like us to do, Joe? Release a statement saying 'sorry about your cancer, kids, but Joe got his ass kicked in a bar fight last night and doesn't feel like getting out of bed?' This was your idea. Your stupid rule about us having a cover. No one else would care if the Jonas Brothers just faded away," Nick snaps. It's his fear and frustration talking, and Joe wishes he could keep his promises for more than five seconds, to be easier on his brothers.

Joe tugs Nick down close, it hurts like hell, he's pretty sure Nick has an elbow in a broken rib, but it's worth it, to appease Nick, to bury his nose in Nick's hair and feel Kevin shift to embrace them both.

It's not something they ever would have done Before, but it feels like old times anyway. Being sandwiched between his brothers like this feels like as close as Joe is ever going to get to truly going home again.

*

Kevin comes into the bathroom while Joe's inspecting his injuries. His chest is now covered with bruising, and several of the gauze pads taped to him have bled through.

"We need to talk."

Nick slips in beside Kevin and starts fussing with the fresh bandages laid out on the counter.

"One of these days you're gonna get yourself killed and we can't, you can't. Nick and I can't-"

Joe meets Kevin's eyes in the mirror. "They're still out there, Kev. You want to just give up? After everything we've lost? Everything _you_ lost? Dani-"

"Don't talk to me about what was taken from me, Joe. I know exactly what's been lost. Better than you ever could, better than you ever will, living your life playing make believe-"

" _Kevin_ ," Nick barks sharply, appalled. Kevin just keeps talking like he didn't hear Nick at all.

"-But I can't lose any more. I won't let anything else be taken from me. I cannot lose you, Joseph. Either of you. This has to stop."

Joe bites his lip. It hurts more than it should, and Joe realizes he's reopened a cut. He turns to face Kevin. "Don't you care about catching whoever ruined our lives? About getting-"

"Revenge?" Kevin asks, raising his eyebrows. "No. I don't care about revenge. Or justice, if you're going to keep pretending that's what you're after. I get that this, hanging out with roadies and getting into fights, is a coping mechanism for you, but I want to move on. I want to live here with you guys and not have to keep an infirmary stocked. I want to be able to pick up a guitar again. I really, really don't want to bury anyone else."

Kevin's eyes are glittering. It's not an unfamiliar look on Kevin these past few years, especially lately. Joe knows his own eyes aren't precisely dry either. He looks down at his socks feeling ashamed.

"I don't want to hurt you, Kevin," Joe tells his feet, "We've all been hurt enough. But I don't know that I can just stop."

Beside them, Nick sighs and peels off one of Joe's bandages. The sting of it startles him.

"Can we compromise?" Joe asks.

"You want to spend all your time trying to track down the Idaho killer, you mean, instead of pretending to go out drinking and then sneaking around and doing it on the side," Nick says coldly, scrubbing at Joe's bloody side harder than is probably necessary.

Joe wants to defend himself, deny that his thoughts were running parallel to Nick's, that he's ever tried to investigate their family's case on his own, but he can't. He can't even feign surprise that Nick knew what he had been doing. But he also can't let this go, can't let the person who brutally murdered their family go free.

After a long silent moment, Kevin sighs. "Alright, Joe. But when they are caught, it's done. Forever."

Joe agrees easily. All he ever really wanted was to do, at least since the case went inactive, is catch his family's killer - now that he's openly being allowed to, he knows the perfect first step.

*

He sends his first tweet in almost three years while his brothers are in their rooms getting changed for the hospital benefit.

 _Tired of hiding from my fans. I'm back_

Nick and Kevin didn't know what he was planning, but now that it's done Joe will tell them. They won't like it at all, but they will have to keep speaking to each other during the charity thing. He and Nick are the only two people Kevin will probably talk to. Since Idaho, Kevin doesn't do strangers anymore.

Joe checks his appearance once more before heading downstairs carefully, leaning on his cane. His whole body aches like he has the flu.

He glances longingly down the hall at the perpetually closed door of the music room before calling out, "I'm in the car!"

Nick as it turns out is only a step behind him as Joe climbs gingerly into the limo they've booked for the day.

It isn't any different than any of the countless other limousines they've been in over the years, sleek and black inside and out, with bench seats facing each other across an aisle and another bench book-ending them.

"Joe," Nick starts as he slides in after his brother, "about the agreement with Kevin-"

"He's right." Joe says. It's been almost three years. "I wish I could let it go. I mean if Kevin can, I should be able to."

"You and Kevin are two totally different people," Nick says with wry affection. "And I'm not so sure that he's right."

Joe raises his eyebrows at Nick in surprise. Nick is ruthlessly practical and concerned for all of their safety. Or, he used to be.

"About me hanging out in bars pretending to be a tough guy and getting my ass kicked for information?"

Nick shakes his head. "About letting the Idaho killer get away with it."

Nick's voice shakes over the words "Idaho killer". They usually just call the person who murdered their family "they" or "them." Names have power and whoever committed that terrible tragedy already has enough power over the remaining Jonas boys. Also, "Idaho killer" is a stupid name.

Kevin climbs into the car then, and Joe doesn't really want to continue this conversation in front of him. Not on top of everything else that has gone on today and is coming up soon. Kevin doesn't need the added stress. Besides, Joe has a confession to make.

He waits until Kevin's settled back into a seat across from him and the driver has started to make his way down the hill that is their long private driveway before he speaks.

"I sent a tweet a little while ago," he tells his brothers matter of factly. He twists his hands in his lap, nervous of his brothers' reactions.

Kevin goes pale and his hands clench involuntarily.

Joe can feel Nick's stare boring a hole into the side of his face.

"Why... why would you do that, Joe?" Kevin asks, barely loud enough to be heard over the engine of the car.

"It's the easiest way to find, you know, them." Out of his peripheral line of vision Joe sees Nick open his mouth to say something. "I'm not gonna use myself as bait, I swear." Joe turns to look Nick in the eye, "I swear, Nick. I just want to open up the lines of communication."

Nick shakes his head and touches Joe's injured arm softly. "Don't you think they'll be on to you?"

"Not really. I mean, it's been three years-"

"It hasn't, Joe," Kevin interrupts. Joe turns to look at him.

"Almost, Kevin," Nick says apologetically.

"Two years, seven months, and twenty-three days," Kevin says mechanically.

"Yeah," Joe agrees. He doesn't understand Kevin's preoccupation with keeping exact track. It seems like that would only bring more pain, especially since he's apparently over the getting justice thing, but now isn't the time to fight about it. "My point is, it's been awhile. If we were going to lure them into a trap, it seems like we would have done it already. Also, weren't the FBI operating on the assumption that it was a crazed fan? If that's true, they'd probably still want to get into contact with us."

"I can't, Joe," Kevin says, his voice fracturing like glass. "I can't put myself back out there."

Joe reaches out and puts his free hand on Kevin's knee. "No one's asking you to. Either of you. This is my thing."

"Joe," Nick's tone is warning.

"I'll tell you - and the police - as soon as I hear anything," Joe insists. It's not like he actually wants to run into the insane person who killed five members of his family.

Kevin leans back in his seat and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath and lets it back out slowly. Joe's seen the action a thousand times in the last two years and eight months, especially lately. Kevin's trying to steel himself for being in public, being functional. He needs time.

Joe unsnaps his seat belt and slides across the limousine's narrow aisle, curling himself up next to Kevin. It hurts his ribs, but Kevin is more important than a few minutes of discomfort.

"Put your seat belt on," Kevin instructs without opening his eyes, a hint of alcohol on his breath. He's relaxing though, melting against Joe. Everything is fine.

Joe sees Nick take Kevin's other hand, rubbing at it the way he used to, back when they were still performing and Kevin's hands would stiffen and ache after shows.

By the time the limo slows to a stop and they slide out of the car, Kevin has his game face on.

It doesn't look like a game face. It looks like Kevin, kind and a little awkward, maybe a bit dull, but it doesn't look like the way Kevin looks now. Worried and broken, sharp, never entirely relaxed, and so, so fragile. He is a much better actor than anyone has ever given him credit for.

Reporters line what the event coordinators describe as "the green carpet" but is actually just the grass of a Beverly Hills park. Joe takes his place ahead of his brothers. He is still the frontman for his family even though they're no longer onstage. He's had to be. Kevin can't hear the word "Twitter" without flinching and Nick spends most of interviews clenching his jaw, his tolerance for bullshit buried with their youngest brother.

"Joe! Jonas Brothers!" An overly made-up woman who works for Extra Entertainment or Insider Access or whatever stupid half-hour gossip show gets slotted in between nightly news and game shows waves them over and holds up a microphone.

Joe pastes on a grin. "Hi, how are you?"

A camera turns its glare on him. He feels his brothers close ranks behind him.

"You just sent your first tweet in years. Would you like to tell us why? Exclusively?"

The press and public never learned of the connection between Twitter and the Jonas Family Murders. Joe has no intention of revealing it now.

He shrugs in a way that he knows people who don't have to deal with him on a daily basis find charming. "I meant what I said. No ulterior motive, I just missed it."

The lie falls gracefully off of his tongue. Lying got a lot easier for Joe after seeing his mother's mutilated corpse. There are some things other people just don't need to know, and have no right to ask.

Behind him, Nick touches the small of Joe's back lightly, a silent show of support that Joe leans into though his back protests the movement.

"Any chance you guys will rejoin Twitter too?" The question is asked of Nick and Kevin, but the reporter is still looking at Joe, holding the microphone out to him. So much the better, Joe wants to shield his brothers from talk of Twitter. He wants to shield them from all of this, from everything that could ever hurt them, but he will take what he can get. He laughs for the camera gamely.

"I don't want to speak for my brothers, but, probably not."

The reporter giggles coyly, leaning in close. Joe can smell her perfume. He wonders if he should ask her out.

"Joe!" someone calls from across the way.

He turns, Kevin leaning into him as he does. It's a comforting, grounding moment for both of them.

A petite, young woman with short dark hair is waving and walking quickly towards him. It is Kitty Fairbanks, a starlet Joe took to a very public fundraiser last week and nothing more.

She rushes into the shot, ignoring the annoyed huff of the reporter, and presses a kiss to Joe's cheek. Nick's hand fists into a ball at the small of Joe's back.

"Kitty, hi." She's pressed up close, leaning against his ribcage and it is really stunningly painful.

"You haven't called!" She teases, gazing up at him. The cameras are rolling. Joe's not sure if Kitty is clever or stupid, but right now he mostly wants to push her away. He should have taken a stronger painkiller before leaving the house.

The reporter looks at the camera smugly and asks, "Might we be seeing a new super couple coming together right in front of us?"

She's obnoxious and Joe is so going to ask her out once the cameras stop rolling. In front of Kitty if he can manage it.

"You never know," Kitty says at the same time Nick chuckles and says, "I don't think Joe's looking for anything serious."

It's hilariously awkward. Joe just smiles a smile he hopes is enigmatic. "Today is about raising money for some great kids. They are the real stars we should focus on."

"Oh, _Joe_ ," Kitty rests her head on his recently-relocated shoulder. Joe almost gasps in pain. She really has a knack for causing him agony considering they've been friendly acquaintances for less than a month.

"Cut," the reporter says. Nick lets go of Joe and he and Kevin step back. Joe steps away from Kitty and towards the reporter.

"It was really nice talking to you," he says. "I'd love to do it again sometime."

She smiles coyly and slips a business card into his hand. "My personal number is on the back."

It's not blatant, but they aren't being very subtle either, Joe knows that Kitty, Nick, and Kevin all saw it.

"I'll call."

*

Joe eases himself down onto the limo's seat and groans shamelessly. He really, really should have brought more painkillers with him.

Kevin sits down across from him, his hands shaking as he tries to buckle his seatbelt. It was a rough day. Too many strangers running around unsupervised. Too many kids, younger than they'd expected. There had been some toddlers.

Nick slides in last and looks at the both of them, shaking his head.

"You two are a mess," he observes with affectionate concern. Nick smiles softly but his eyes shine with worry. Then again, Joe can't pinpoint the last time Nick's eyes didn't.

"I'm fine," Kevin insists, though Joe knows that spending a day with strangers, with small children, has left him shaken and craving a drink.

"I hurt."

"On a scale of one to five, how much pain are you in, Joe?" Nick asks. Joe knows he's only being focused on because there is nothing Nick can do for Kevin right now. Not with no wine on him and such an auspicious date looming.

"Codeine."

Nick sighs.

"About a five," Joe tries again.

"Are you just giving me the answer that's gonna get you codeine when we get home?"

Joe appreciates the concern, he really does. But. "I don't want codeine specifically, Nick, I want to stop hurting. I just want some drugs and to soak in a warm bath."

Nick's face softens. "You're really alright?"

Joe nods.

"And you, Kevin?" Nick turns to question Kevin.

"I'm the same as always, Nick," Kevin says sadly. He toys with the ring he wears on a chain around his neck.

It has happened so many times that Joe feels like he should know how to help his big brother out of this. Now he just knows not to try. Instead Kevin's sadness, his two year, seven month, twenty three day old grief, extends to include him and Nick in its bubble.

Sorrow links them like a chain, binds them closer than brotherhood, maybe even closer than love.

They sit, still and silent, until their arrival at home allows the moment to be broken.

*

As Joe heads up the stairs towards the sweet relief of a bath, pain and impatience briefly tempt him to leave the bathroom door open rather than just unlocked, in the hope that a glimpse of his skin will be what presses his brothers into finally making their moves. But Joe knows better than to push. Besides, Kevin and Nick have seen so much of his skin over the years that they've no doubt become immune by now.

Thousands of replies to Joe's tweet await him when he checks in the moments between changing out of his dress clothes and going to hassle Nick for painkillers. He doesn't mean to sit down and start sorting through them, he really does want that bath, but he can't help it.

100 or so of the messages are from friends and "friends," welcoming him back and taking his tweet as a sign that his mourning period is over. They are wrong, and some of them massively deluded, but not psychotic.

Most of the messages seem to be genuine enthusiasm from fans, lots of exclamation points and "welcome back"s and "sorry for your loss"es.

Joe comes across a handful of creepy tweets, though, and copies them into a Word file. None of them remind Joe quite of the killer's tone but he's learned his lesson - even if it did take five people's lives to do it - better safe than sorry.

He has the killer tweets saved in a file password protected and hidden because he didn't want Nick or Kevin stumbling across them. It's not a file he opens all that often, but more often than he thought he might. The ransom notes that killed his family are surprisingly effective motivators.

 _play "Move On" or your family will die._ what they assume to be the first tweet reads. It's possible that nicer, friendlier requests came first, but they were long gone by the time the cyber-crimes investigators started looking for them.

"Joe?" Nick asks from the doorway.

Joe flips his computer shut.

Nick walks into the room, frowning. "You hiding something from me?"

"Not really. There's just something I don't want you to see."

Nick snorts, clearly not understanding the distinction.

"It's the Idaho case," Joe gives in because he knows he will eventually cave to Nick and he may as well save them both some time and energy. "Mom and Dad's case. I just, you shouldn't have to see it. Kevin shouldn't have to know I have it."

"Kevin shouldn't know you have what?" Kevin asks, leaning in the doorway. He's got a half-finished glass of red wine in his hand, with his tie discarded and his collar unbuttoned he seems more relaxed already.

Joe tries to remember back to when his brother was a calm, outgoing, friendly guy. Before he was tense and jagged and scared all the time and needed to use wine to lubricate his emotions. Before he spent his days trying to figure out which fan he pissed off at a meet and greet enough to make them murder his wife and unborn child. That other Kevin is a distant memory. It doesn't matter, though, Joe loves his brother fiercely, regardless of the ways they've all changed.

"That Joe has a file on the case," Nick reveals. "The tweets. The pictures?"

Joe nods helplessly. He doesn't look at the pictures their enraged fan tweeted of their family's mutilated bodies often, the images feel etched on his retinas, but he keeps them anyway. He isn't all that sure of why. For clues, he supposes. Or punishment.

Kevin lifts his glass to his mouth and takes a drink. "Oh."

"Kevin, I just-" Joe stammers to try to explain himself.

"No. You were right. I shouldn't know that. How could you, Joe? How could you bring pictures of my dead wife into our home?"

"Kev," his name comes anguished out of Nick's mouth.

Kevin pulls Nick in and holds him close, beckoning to Joe with his wineglass, anger already forgotten in the quest for comfort.

Stiff with residual pain and hobbling over to them, Joe embraces his brothers. He keeps hoping that if he can just hold on to them tight enough for long enough that maybe everything will be okay again.

*

Nick is snoring softly in Joe's ear, but Kevin is who Joe fell asleep next to. He sits up carefully and fumbles for his glasses and cane, brushing a kiss against Nick's ear before quietly leaving the bedroom.

There are two places Kevin would reasonably be at this hour, aside from bed, but Joe strongly suspects that Kevin is not reading in his room. He's been too erratic lately, consumed with an upcoming anniversary that Joe and Nick don't know how to help him through.

He gingerly makes his way down their slippery grand staircase, cane tapping along the marble floors. Joe certainly won't be sneaking up on Kevin, not if he is paying any attention at all.

There is no light blazing in the living room, but the door is most of the way closed. Joe is glad to have guessed right and not made the trek downstairs for nothing. He pushes the door open.

Kevin is sitting on the sofa staring blankly at the dark tv screen, a nearly-empty glass of wine dangling from one hand. There's a bottle not far away. Soon they are going to have to acknowledge Kevin's reliance on alcohol and do something about it, but not tonight.

"Kev?" Joe speaks softly into the darkness.

Kevin sighs. "Go back to bed, Joe. Nick will be missing you."

"He'll miss both of us, but that's alright, we'll be back soon," Joe says as confidently as he can.

Kevin turns his head to look over the back of the couch, as if to meet Joe's eyes, but instead Kevin looks past him. He takes a swig out of his glass. "I don't want to do this right now."

Joe limps a few more steps into the room, every physical ache in his body a reminder of the emotional pain in Kevin's.

"I know. I don't know how to help you," he admits, shrugging helplessly.

"Just go back to bed," Kevin says petulantly. "Be with Nick."

"Come with me," Joe pleads. He wonders sometimes if this is the way he is going to lose his big brother. He tries so hard to hold on to Kevin, but it always feels like Kevin is slipping through his fingers one jagged piece at a time. "Let us take care of you."

Kevin shakes his head and sighs the most bereft sound Joe has ever heard. "I miss them every day."

Joe comes around and sits next to his brother.

"I do too." He sees anger spark in Kevin's eyes and continues hurriedly, "Not the way you do, of course not, but we all loved Dani, Kevin. We would have loved the baby too. So much. You know that."

Kevin's free hand clutches at Joe's. Joe turns his hand palm up so that he can rub comfortingly at Kevin while they hold hands. They sit in silence matching their breathing to each other, Joe thumbing circles into the back of Kevin's hand.

The moments stretch longer and longer until finally Joe breaks them.

"No one is trying to replace anyone, Kevin. We don't want to, and even if we did, we know we couldn't."

Kevin sighs again, a soft harumph of acknowledgement. It's enough.

"Come on," Joe says a few minutes later. "Come to bed."

Kevin stands, says, "Nick will be waiting," and goes to put his wine away.

Joe feels like he's accomplished something, tenuous though it may be. He isn't certain of what, or how long it will last, but it feels like a breakthrough nonetheless.

He and Kevin walk back upstairs quietly and slip into bed on either side of Nick. He mumbles in his sleep and nuzzles into Kevin.

"Everything okay now?" he asks, mostly asleep.

"Yeah," Joe whispers.

"Yes, go back to sleep," Kevin echoes.

Joe reaches out for his brothers and closes his eyes.

*

The next afternoon, Joe calls up the reporter and asks her out. There's no reason to play games, maybe she's looking to be his one and only, but mostly she's looking to be seen on his arm. It's cool with Joe, he's only looking to be seen out with another beautiful woman. The last thing he wants is someone to invade his life, his and Nick's and Kevin's hard-won privacy.

Nick and Kevin are both in the kitchen with him when Joe pulls out the business card and punches the number into his phone.

"Hi, April? It's Joe, we met yesterday?"

She's pleasant, plays it cool but interested, but Joe is paying more attention to the way Kevin's shoulders slump as he washes up his breakfast dishes, the way Nick's slamming cabinets shut and hurling ingredients down onto the counter. He's going to break something.

"Would you like to go out tonight?"

Nick pounds a skillet down onto the stove furiously.

April would love to go out tonight, but she has to work. She's free after 11, is that too late?

Watching Nick's strong shoulders as he rends an egg apart, Joe makes plans to meet the pretty reporter for a late cup of coffee and maybe a bite to eat.

Neither of his brothers says anything once Joe ends the call. He'd like to be the one to clear the air, to point out reasonably that at least one of them should pretend to be normal. They're attractive, famous multimillionaires, they should be dating all of the gorgeous women that they can. He'd like to say that she's just a screen, they're all just screens, no one's going to take me from you, no one could, I love you. But he can't. He can't say those things aloud without watching all of his hopes and dreams for the future turn to dust. Joe's not going to lose his brothers. Especially not on some stupid technicality because he can't stand awkward silences.

They spend the day in one of those awkward silences, though the awkwardness settles after awhile. They're three people in a ridiculously large mansion; their afternoons often take on a quiet loneliness, as much as Nick tries to negate it by keeping close.

Joe's not relieved, exactly, to get ready for his date, but he's never done as well with silence as his brothers do. He doesn't know why they expect him to.

He meets April at a very trendy coffee house after she's finished at the station. She's prettier when she's not tarted up for t.v., her wavy blond hair tossed over a shoulder, green eyes bright with interest. They share a nice cup off coffee and he kisses her amid camera flashes in the parking lot.

He won't be calling her again. It's nothing personal, he never calls any of them again.

Kevin's waiting for him when Joe gets home. Nick is holed up in his room. He's not done sulking about Joe dating yet, but then Joe hadn't expected him to be. They're all just waiting for the moment when they are all ready for this.

"How was it?" Kevin asks as he and Joe walk upstairs, a supportive hand under Joe's elbow. Joe's not quite ready to be walking without a cane though he'd opted to do without it for his date.

"Surprisingly enjoyable," Joe admits.

"So will you call her again?"

Joe snorts. "Of course not. Do I ever?"

Kevin sighs. "Some day you're gonna find the right girl, Joe. I just want you to be open to the possibility that-"

"I won't, Kev." Joe cuts him off, stopping on the stairs and turning to look his older brother in the eye. "How many times do I have to tell you that this is it? You and Nick are the only people who are ever gonna get me. You're the only people I need. The only people I want."

"Joe-"

"Kevin, stop." Nick says from the top of the stairs. Joe hadn't expected his presence, much less his intervention. "Leave Joe alone."

"You guys are young. You're going to meet people who make you feel..." Kevin lapses into silence, fingering the wedding ring he wears on a chain around his neck.

Joe tugs Kevin close, wraps his arms around him.

Nick comes down to meet them, fitting easily on to the shared stair of their ostentatiously grand staircase and wrapping around Kevin's other side and making soothing noises low in his throat.

The three of them stand in the middle of the staircase clinging to each other and rocking back and forth for a long time.

"Bedtime," Joe says finally, and steers Nick and Kevin upstairs into the master bedroom.

Normally Joe would go get his pajamas out of his room, would wash his face and brush his teeth. Tonight he's unwilling to leave his brothers. He strips down to his boxers and then curls close around Kevin, brushing knuckles with Nick on his other side.

*

Joe doesn't know what to do with all the free time he suddenly finds himself having. He had dedicated a lot of his days to workouts which are now mostly off limits because Kevin doesn't think he has healed up enough to go pushing himself. Oddly, going downstairs to the music room doesn't occur to Joe at all, except in the passing thought it has been a very long time since he filled his days with music.

"Joe?" Nick sticks his head into Joe's room as he's idly clicking through MySpace. "You busy?"

"No, come on in." He flips his computer shut. "What's up?"

Nick closes the door behind him and sits on the bed that is only there for show. "It's Kevin."

"The drinking or the baby's birthday?" Joe asks, resigned. Kevin has some problems and Joe is at a loss for how to help with any of them.

"The baby's birthday," Nick sighs heavily. "I don't know what to do. How to help. He needs-"

"We talked the other night," Joe says.

"What happened?"

"He needs to know that it's okay to move on, and that we're not going anywhere. We're..." Joe trails off. It's Nick, who he can tell anything to, but he's not sure he can say this. Put it out there. He bites his lips.

"We're waiting," Nick finishes softly. "We're waiting for him."

"Yeah," Joe whispers. The acknowledgement of what's between them, that Nick is willing to speak it aloud, it matters more to Joe than he ever would have guessed. It has been years of longing, but Joe has never wanted to kiss his brave, gorgeous, brilliant little brother more than he does at this moment. "Nick."

If it were anyone else in the world, Joe would be embarrassed of the way his voice sounds, tight and rough and needy.

"We're waiting, Joe," Nick repeats firmly. "We're not going anywhere, we're waiting for Kevin."

*

 _Missin you all. missin music_ Joe tweets one evening because he feels like it. He is surprised at the realization of how isolated from music he has become, and even more surprised that he can still miss the thing that got his family killed. Then he goes out for a swim, because it's pretty much the only exercising he can do without hurting his still-healing knee and shoulder.

  
*

"Do you think I should go out tonight?" Joe asks randomly over breakfast one day. He toys with the crusts of his toast, a grown man and still unwilling to eat them.

"I'm assuming that by 'go out' you don't mean to dinner," Nick says wryly.

Kevin looks over his newspaper at Joe. "You haven't even healed up from last time, yet."

Joe had meant going back to the bar he hangs out at, buying a couple of rounds of drinks for the roadies who frequent the joint, and seeing what information might spill out of their chemically loosened lips. Not going out to dinner. But Kevin is right. His body isn't healthy enough for him to be getting into fistfights with assholes. And a fancy dinner out with his brothers sounds pretty awesome, actually. Like it might be just the thing that makes everything fall into place.

"You want to go out to dinner?" Joe asks. "Let's go. Suits, ties, it'll be fun."

"Yeah?" Nick sounds doubtful, but he is as close to beaming as Nick is capable of getting.

"Why not? Come on, Kev, what do you say?"

"Me?" Kevin looks up, surprised. "I, sure, I think you guys should go to dinner."

Nick sighs. "You too, Kevin. The three of us."

"Oh. I. I don't -" Joe knows that Kevin is thinking about what tomorrow is, weighing the dead against the living. He has resigned himself to another rejection when Kevin surprises him. "Yeah, okay. Sounds good."

Nick grins bright and young. "It's a date."

God, Joe hopes so.

*

It's silly, how long Joe spends primping for a date with his brothers. He can't decide which suit, and then which shirt, and then which tie. And normally he'd shout for Nick -if he wants to look classic- or Kevin -if he's feeling cutting-edge- but he's dressing for them, so it seems unfair to drag them into his dilemma.

Eventually he settles on a classic suit and a kind of funky tie, debates shaving and opts for not, puts in his contacts, and is finally ready, more or less on time.

Nick's waiting, leaning against the pool table in the game room and looking. Well. Joe came to terms with the fact that he thinks Nick is one of the hottest things in the world a long time ago. His mouth doesn't actually water, but he _wants_. More than he has in a long time he wants Nick, in all the ways that he already has Nick and all of the ways he isn't allowed to have him. Yet.

Kevin is only a few moments behind Joe, dress shoes clicking down the marble staircase as he palms a last little bit of gel into his hair.

Next to Joe, Nick straightens up at the sight of Kevin. Joe wants to skip the whole dinner, date, talking, first kiss business and drag his brothers straight back upstairs to bed. Kevin has forgone a tie, leaving his dress shirt open a few tantalizing buttons, though the rest of him is perfectly turned out. Much more than that, Kevin looks like Kevin again. For the first time since they stepped off of that Idaho stage, Kevin's smile reaches his eyes, he looks comfortable, and Joe wonders if maybe that, more than anything, is what he has been working for all of these months.

"Looking good, guys," Kevin compliments them. His eyes linger, giving Joe a really good feeling about tonight. "Who's driving?"

Nick volunteers so that both of his brothers can drink. Joe feels guilty, like he's the man here. He asked them out, he should do the driving and the paying. But he also feels like getting sloppy on wine and sprawling all over his brothers until they are willing to admit that they love him back.

They have reservations at some see-and-be-seen restaurant down by the beach, a place Kitty Fairbanks mentioned while angling for a date number two. Joe picked it because he wants to be seen, wants to show Nick and Kevin that the three of them can go out without it being anything but enjoyable. He desperately hopes that it is in fact possible. Joe's not sure he will get another chance like this.

A valet spot has been held for them and, though the restaurant is crowded, they're instantly seated at a table with a view. Apparently the Jonas name does still hold a certain amount of weight in Los Angeles.

The restaurant is a little bit like a red carpet and Joe recognizes almost everyone around them. Including Miley Cyrus.

He tries to get Kevin and Nick to switch spots, so that Nick doesn't see her and she doesn't see Nick. In Miley-time, girl-time, actual time, it hasn't been all that long since Nick left Miley at the altar, just turned around and walked away.

Joe knows that in Nick's head, and his and Kevin's, it didn't feel like a big deal and seems to have happened in another life. But really, it's been little more than a year since Miley stood surrounded by flowers in a pretty ivory dress and watched her first love's retreating back as he strode away from their shot at happily ever after.

A year after his parents' death, Nick was trying to find something to hold onto. Someone to keep living for. And Miley had been there, holding his hand and crying in public and being what they both thought he needed. So Nick got down on one knee and asked Miley for forever and started making plans for their own private kingdom. But then Nick realized that he had his brothers, who were what he needed without even knowing it and were already bound to him for life, and walked away.

Joe doesn't move quickly enough though -- it seems he's never in his life moved quickly enough to prevent the bad things from happening -- and across the room he sees Miley see them. Her face falls and then hardens into something mean and ugly as she stands. Joe grips at Nick's forearm to get his attention.

Miley is making a beeline towards them. She looks good. At 20 she has stopped trying to look older than her age and has gained self-confidence and poise of her own instead of constantly acting it.

Beside him, Nick gulps nervously and starts to stand.

"No. Don't get up," Miley's voice is cold, her features hard and furious.

"Miley," Nick says. "It's good to see you. I'm glad you're-"

"What are you doing here?" She asks in a low hiss.

Joe knows the wrong answer is 'eating dinner', and he's pretty sure that Nick knows it too. But he's equally as confident that neither of them have the right answer for Miley.

"How are you, Miles?" Kevin asks.

"I was better before you three showed up here," Miley snaps. She turns to look at Kevin, face softening slightly. "How are _you_ , Kev?"

Kevin's smile is genuine. One of the first Joe's seen in three years. His eyes are somewhat shiny, but they're smiling too.

"I think the worst of it is finally over now."

Miley smiles. It's a small one, but Joe doesn't think she's faking. "I'm glad to hear that, Kevin. Really. I'm glad all of you are doing alright."

"Miley," Nick tries again, "I-"

"Don't, okay?" Her voice isn't cold anymore, just tired and sad. She shakes her head. "I understand. You were cruel and hurtful and the whole thing was awful, but, I understand."

Nick toys with a breadstick, unable to meet Miley's eyes. Joe doesn't blame him. He thinks that if it were Demi standing there, he'd probably be hiding under the table. And he didn't do anything so heinous to Demi as leaving her at the altar.

"Thank you," Nick says softly.

Miley nods and walks away without saying goodbye. It's only fair, really.

In her wake, an awkward silence descends.

Nick keeps toying with his bread and Kevin sips at the wine he'd ordered almost before they sat down. Joe runs his fingers absently through his gelled hair, making a mess of it, and exhales.

"So," Kevin says with some effort after a few minutes, "how about those Yankees?"

Joe just snorts with affectionate amusement, but for some reason Kevin's question sets Nick laughing. It's not long before they're all howling, getting curious looks from other patrons.

At last Nick sits back and wipes his watery eyes. "Sorry, I..."

"It's good," Kevin says. "I don't know the last time I laughed like that. It was probably with... Before."

Joe appreciates the effort Kevin is putting into moving forward tonight. It's good to know that Kevin even wants to move forward.

Dinner itself is unremarkable, as it so often is at places like this that get buzz for being hotspots, but the company and conversation are incredible. Kevin stops after three glasses of wine but still manages to smile and talk with his hands, excited and animated. Nick won't stop smiling, casually touching both Kevin and Joe as he talks, light little gestures that foreshadow so much more. For his part, Joe gets sloppy on white wine, going quiet with all the effort and love he's focusing on his brothers as he tries to keep his lips to himself.

Music has been playing discretely in the background all evening. Modern stuff, not necessarily theirs or Miley’s, but indie songs that are familiar enough that Joe could sing along to it if he wanted to. And the sloppier he gets, the more he leans along Nick’s side, the more Joe wants to sing.

He is harmonizing with Zooey Deschanel under his breath when Nick elbows him gently in the side and suggests, “Lets get out of here.”

Joe loves that idea. It’s the best idea he’s ever heard. Nick is totally the smart one.

“You’re totally the smart one,” Joe tells Nick as they all stand up. Kevin huffs an indignant laugh.

Nick smiles a little bit sadly and says, “I guess I should have cut you off before that last glass of wine?”

“No. I’m not drunk,” Joe explains to his doubtful brother. “I’m just… I'm pretty relaxed.”

Nick ‘mmmhmm’s softly as they walk out of the restaurant and Joe knows Nick doesn’t believe him. It’s frustrating. Especially since Joe isn't really drunk. He knows, though, that insisting will only further convince Nick that Joe is inebriated. Still.

“I can still use the word ‘inebriated’ in a sentence. I can still _pronounce_ the word ‘inebriated’. How drunk can I be?”

Nick laughs for real and Kevin bumps into Joe. “I think you just had one of those thoughts that you only said half of out loud.”

Joe shrugs.

“I know. It’s not important.” He bumps back against Kevin. “Love you guys.”

“Love you too,” Nick wraps his arm around Joe’s waist and leans in close against Joe’s other side.

*

Joe doesn’t want to disentangle from his brothers when the valet brings the car around. He wants to be close and warm, plastered between them both always.

He doesn’t say that, though, knows Nick will hear it as meaningless drunken rambling instead of as the stone-cold sober truth that it is. Instead he makes a grumbly noise when Nick lets go of him and then immediately calls shotgun.

Kevin laughs at him, but slides into the backseat without protesting and Joe triumphantly claims the passenger seat as his prize.

They’re quiet as they drive away from the restaurant, a comfortable anticipatory silence that grows more and more anxious as the car winds its way back inland.

“I had a good time tonight,” Kevin says finally, breaking the silence. “Thank you.”

“Night’s not over yet,” Nick says tensely. He sounds nervous, scared. Joe never wanted to be a thing his brothers could be afraid of.

“It can be,” Joe offers quietly. He doesn’t want the night to end in this car, he wants to go home, kiss his brothers goodnight, crawl into bed and see where that leads them. But more than that he wants his brothers to be safe and happy.

Nick turns to look at Joe, startled enough that the car jerks slightly under his control. “What? No. I-“

“Nick,” Kevin calls calmly from the back, “eyes on the road.”

Nick turns his attention back to the road and his uncomfortable stammering falls quiet as he concentrates on driving.

The silence thickens once more until by the time they reach the house it just feels like pressure to Joe. The weight of expectation and the wine buzzing in his head almost make Joe want to call the whole thing off, and go sleep in his own bed.

But Joe hasn’t slept alone since the night before Idaho. The thought of cold sheets and a dark room make him shiver unpleasantly. He never wants to have to do that again.

Nick looks over at him from the driver’s seat, all warm eyes and eager hope, and, just like every time Joe looks at Nick, something in him settles comfortingly.

They’re going to do this. Because they love each other and they want to.

Joe climbs out of the car and gazes up at the intimidating façade of their house, lights simultaneously making it shine bright white and shadowing it ominously.

They don’t have to do this. Sex can’t bring them any closer than they already are. It won’t keep them from abandoning each other, genetics and tragedy have seen to that. It isn’t a way to tell them that they love each other. Every breath and touch and song and tear for their entire lives says so. They want this. Sex between them will just be an additional eager greedy thing that they can have. A novelty in their new post-parents world.

Kevin puts a wine warm hand to the back of Joe’s neck, pushing him gently towards the house and the future.

Nick is tugging off his tie by the time Joe and Kevin enter the foyer. He takes one look at Joe and then is in Joe’s space, pinning him back against Kevin. Joe and Nick’s first kiss is lightening-quick, an unsatisfying brief press of lip to lip.

Seconds later, just to the right of Joe’s face, Kevin and Nick kiss slower and just as chaste, Joe sandwiched between them.

Another moment and Nick takes a step back, taking Joe’s chin in his hand and turning Joe’s face gently to where Kevin is waiting calmly, eyes sparkling for the first time in as long as Joe can remember.

Joe closes his eyes and leans in, wants this to matter, to mean something for both of them.

Their noses collide and Joe’s eyes fly open. Kevin is smiling and laughing kindly, and Nick has his arms crossed around his middle and seems to be trying to hold back gales of laughter.

Joe smiles too. He wants to see Nick red and disheveled from laughter, panting for breath.

“Go ahead,” he tells Nick. “It’s funny.”

It is, too. How hard Joe worked to get them to this moment only to freeze up and spaz out. How hilariously stereotypical that ultimately Nick was the suave one and Kevin was the comforting one and Joe is the one who has all three of them collapsing to the ground in a laughing pile.

As their laughter slows, Joe leans up, catching Kevin in an easy, smiling kiss. It feels exactly how Joe wanted it to, safe and warm and honey-sweet.

When the kiss ends, Nick is watching them thoughtfully. Joe reaches out to tousle his little brother’s hair.

They sit crumpled in a pile at the bottom of their stairs for a long time, trading kisses and gentle touches.

Eventually the cold of the marble floor starts to seep upwards into them, and Kevin coaxes them up off of the ground. Joe lets his brothers pull him up, the chill and awkward position having done no favors for his half-healed injuries.

Though it’s not necessary, Nick and Kevin both wrap an arm around Joe’s waist as they take the stairs up to bed.

[Part 2](http://incendiarywits.livejournal.com/63923.html)


	2. Chapter 2

The barfly gets a firm grip on Joe's collar and hurls him out of the bar and headfirst into a brick wall. The painful sudden impact knocks the wind out of him and makes Joe's vision go gray, made even dimmer by the poorly lit parking lot. His instinct is to call out for help, instead Joe reminds himself that he wants this fight and does his best to twist himself into a position where he can face his opponent and better defend himself.

He lands a few solid punches to the face and torso of the jerk who started this brawl and as he's circling the guy to try to get in a kidney punch, a vicious kick to Joe's left knee has his legs out from under him. Before he knows quite what has happened, Joe is on the ground taking kicks to his head and torso. Something snaps painfully in his chest.

Joe closes his eyes and, picturing the compassionate faces of Nick and Kevin, focuses on taking shuddery breaths. Once it becomes apparent that all the fight has gone out of Joe, the other guy takes off.

After a few more minutes of breathing slow and calm, trying not to think about how he is lying outside of the seedy bar he had been hanging out in twenty minutes ago and inhaling the scent of dirt and hot asphalt, Joe pulls out his cell phone and hits speed dial number one.

"Nick, it's me," he groans as he drags himself to the brick wall of the bar so that he can sit and lean against it while he waits for his brother. The brick scrapes through his shirt at the tender flesh of Joe's back, and he can feel blood trickling sluggishly down the side of his face. He's probably quite a sight right now, he bets that his millions of former fans wouldn't recognize him like this.

Joe's pretty sure he doesn't lose consciousness while he waits for Nick, but his world has narrowed to his pain and the dim glow of the streetlight casting his shadow.

It seems like hardly any time has passed before Nick is kneeling at Joe's side, shaking his shoulder. Absently, Joe wonders just how fast Nick was driving. Even through the pain, Nick's touch sends a current of attraction through Joe's body giving him goosebumps, a sensation that somehow overrides his injuries.

Carefully, Nick helps him to stand, strong arms supporting Joe. The embrace hurts, even though Joe is grateful for his little brother's strength and presence. He is stiff and sore, his head throbs, and he can't put any weight onto his left knee. Joe knows he should be ashamed of the way he goes lax, forcing Nick to half carry him to the flashy sports car Nick has parked a few steps away, but Joe can't be anything but comforted by Nick's proximity and protection.

He deposits Joe in the clean, soft passenger seat of a car that years later still hasn't lost its factory fresh smell before sliding into the driver's seat and running a hand through his tidy curls.

"So," Nick sighs heavily, "Did you have fun on your night out?"

Joe groans and halfheartedly tries to wipe blood out of his eyes with his hands. He can't deny that it really wasn't one of his more successful evenings. "You win some, you lose some."

"Yeah, but, Joe -" Joe's sure Nick is about to raise some very valid points about the life choices Joe has been making lately, or possibly just make a snide comment about how he loses way more than he wins, but right now Joe's entire body is in agony. It feels like he might also have dislocated a shoulder on top of everything else. He just wants to go home, have Kevin patch him up, and sleep for a hundred years.

"Can we just go home, Nick? Please?" Joe looks over at his brother who is staring out the windshield.

Nick doesn't answer, but he does start the car. Joe can feel him radiating disappointment and it is a long silent drive back to the house.

High in the hills, home is a too big, too cold art deco masterpiece that is a dark, foreboding place by night and is little better by day. When they arrive the door is already open, silhouetting a waiting Kevin poised for action against almost painfully bright light.

He hurries up to the passenger side door before Nick has turned off the engine and eases Joe out of the car with practiced efficiency.

"You look like you lost a fight," he observes teasingly, though his eyes are sharp and his face is creased with worry.

"Nothing you can't fix up," Joe says lightly, laying his bloody head against Kevin's shoulder, seeking comfort careless of the stains he might be leaving. He and his brothers have been marked by so much blood already that another streak or two will hardly make a difference.

"Maybe if you spent less time picking fights with losers in bars and dating 18 year old starlets, Kevin wouldn't have to keep putting you back together," Nick says, coming around to help Kevin get Joe into the house. There isn't a lot of sting in Nick's words.

"It was one date. For appearances sake. Last week," Joe grumbles back, avoiding the real issue. He maneuvers his injured shoulder and busted knee so that he can be of some use in getting himself into the house and down to the infirmary, but mostly his brothers carry him and he lets them, trying to make the going as easy as he can given the massive amount of pain he's in.

Joe's not sure who had the bright idea to put the infirmary in the basement, but it definitely wasn't one of their best ideas. Every stair-step jars his injured body, and his brothers have to support a fully grown man down steep, dim concrete steps.

He thinks they stowed the infirmary down here because all three of them like to imagine that they are Batman, though the official line is probably that someone might have wondered about the room if it were located upstairs. As if anyone ever visits the Jonas mansion.

In glaring contrast to the dark stairway, the infirmary is bright white, well-stocked and sterile.

Nick and Kevin lower Joe onto an exam table.

"Where does it hurt?" Nick asks while Kevin opens drawers and assembles a tray of bandages and medical equipment. Joe isn't excited to see Kevin add a needle to the pile amongst the slings and topical anesthetic. He has every intention of fighting Kevin on the idea that he needs stitches.

"Shoulder, ribs, knee," Joe recites, listing his ailments in order from head to toe. "I'm probably banged up other places too."

Kevin faces Joe with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a gauze pad. He takes first Joe's right hand and then his left, scouring any cuts he finds until every bit of broken glass and asphalt is gone. The stinging sensation is as cathartic as ever. It feels like a benediction as Joe recites his sins.

Joe perches awkwardly as Nick and Kevin gently tug off his jeans and shoes in well-rehearsed motions. The shiver that wracks Joe's body is from far more than the chill of the infirmary. While Kevin works to tend the injuries to his legs, Nick eyes Joe's shirt.

"Can you lift your arms?" He asks doubtfully.

The answer is "no", but Joe makes a halfhearted attempt anyway. Nick sighs and grabs the suture scissors off of Kevin's tray.

Joe likes this t-shirt, but he doesn't protest when Nick cuts into it at the neck and then tears the rest of the fabric away.

Nick's knuckles graze Joe's abdomen and heavy anticipatory pause fills the room as all three of them cease their actions.

Joe savors the stillness along with the implication that his brothers want what he wants for as long as it lasts, until Kevin stands and, seeing the scratches crisscrossing Joe's back, tuts with displeasure.

"That's mostly from the wall," Joe tells Kevin inanely. Kevin doesn't respond except to scrub harder at the skin. " _Ow._ "

"Stop being a baby, Joseph." Nick says, shaking his head vigorously, as if to clear away the lingering traces of the spell that has just overtaken them all.

"I'm not." Joe wants to protest further but he is so exhausted suddenly. He slumps forward, resting his head against Nick's collarbone. That's three shirts Joe has ruined tonight.

After a few moments he feels Nick sigh and then fingers are pushing through his hair. Joe could fall asleep just like this.

"Alright, Joe. I need to see that cut on your head," Kevin announces.

Nick steps away and Joe bites down the protest he wants to make.

Kevin comes to stand in front of him and dabs at the blood on Joe's temple carefully. "At least you didn't mess up your face."

"Why? Wouldn't love me if I wasn't pretty anymore?" Joe tries to smirk, but he only makes it halfway before it turns into a grimace. It's hard to be anything but serious and a little bit scared while your older brother performs serious first-aid on you. Joe isn't completely sure how their lives came to this, but here they are, hiding from the whole world, even doctors.

Kevin ignores him, throwing the bloody gauze away and picking up the needle. Suddenly Joe is wide awake again.

"Really, Kevin?" Joe complains. There is something about watching his brother sew his skin shut that disturbs Joe deeply. Not to mention the fact that Joe's pretty sure it's a totally unnecessary procedure. A few butterfly bandages will close the cut right up. "Stitches? It's just a tiny cut above my hairline. It's not a big deal."

Kevin glares at him. "I could glue it, if you'd prefer that."

Joe holds the hand not attached to his dislocated shoulder up in surrender. "I just don't think it needs to be treated."

Once again Kevin ignores him, dabbing anesthetic along the wound. He's gotten good at stitching up Joe's injuries. A few passes of the needle and he's done. It almost doesn't hurt at all, Joe's throbbing shoulder masking most of the pain.

"Ready for me to set the shoulder?"

Joe reaches for Nick automatically and laces the fingers of his free hand with his younger brother's when Nick slips his hand into Joe's. "Do it."

Kevin positions Joe's arm with familiarity and doesn't flinch when it pops back into place. Joe does.

"There's nothing to be done about the bruises, the ribs, or the knee tonight," Kevin says as he tidies up the infirmary. Joe still hasn't let go of Nick's hand. "Nick and I will help you up to bed and we'll put a brace on it in the morning. You're probably going to have to rock a cane at the thing tomorrow."

"The thing?" Joe asks. He doesn't remember there being a thing, but that's not all that unusual.

Nick wiggles his hand in Joe's as if to gesture but he doesn't let go of Joe to make the movement. "It's a charity afternoon for kids with... cancer? I think. Maybe heart problems."

Joe is all for charity, but he's going to hurt in the morning. Trotting around playing man about town doesn't sound remotely like fun.

"C'mon," Nick tugs gently at Joe's arm. "Let's get you to bed."

*

It's loud and dark. There's noise right above him, mechanical grinding and the high terrified whimpers of his family. More distantly he hears the screams of excited girls and a rock concert being performed above his head. He's never had this particular nightmare before, but Joe knows how it ends. He wonders if he's dying too.

Joe is tied to a piece of machinery, bound, he knows with dream-logic, along with his family. Next to him Dani is sobbing and shouting long tears streaming down her face and shining through the darkness as she struggles at the ropes wrapped too-tightly around her midsection. On Joe's other side, he can barely make out Frankie, paralyzed with terror. Joe only knows that his baby brother is still breathing because he has already heard this story. He cannot see his parents, but he knows that they are there, dying just out of his sight.

The ropes get tighter. Joe joins his family in screaming.

The pressure around his waist gets tighter still and then he wakes up.

*

Joe gasps awake, sucking in breaths of air as if he has surfaced from the depths of the ocean instead of from a dream.

Kevin's arm is wrapped tight around Joe's stomach and Nick is stroking his hair, whispering soothing things into his ear.

It's morning and he's in their bed. Their big, white bed with clean sheets and soft comforters.

"You're okay, Joe," Nick says, lips moving against Joe's ear. But Joe can hear the relief in his voice. Feels his younger brother lean his forehead against the side of Joe's head.

Kevin doesn't say anything, just wriggles closer, taking and giving comfort by proximity. The solid pressure of Kevin at Joe's side makes him wince. He has no desire to have Kevin to move, but, _ow_. He shifts like he's going to roll away from Joe. Joe grips his wrist and Kevin settles back in.

"I hurt," Joe grumbles, because though it's not the first thing on his mind, or even the third, it's the only one he's willing to express to his brothers. They don't need to know the contents of his nightmare, art imitating life.

Nick huffs unhappily but he pulls away from Joe slightly. "You have to stop doing this, Joe. You got seriously hurt last night."

Joe opens his mouth to object - to point out that it doesn't matter, not really, but what's the point in doing this if the bad guys really are going to get away in the end anyway - only Kevin cuts him off, voice husky from sleep and lack of use.

"Can this at least wait until after we've changed your bandages?"

Joe shuts his mouth and nods obediently. He understands that he scared Kevin and Nick pretty badly last night. That it isn't fair, given everything. So he'll shut up and let his brothers take care of him the way they need to. At least for now.

"We've got that thing at the children's hospital this afternoon," Nick says.

Joe groans. "Can't we get out of it?"

"What would you like us to do, Joe? Release a statement saying 'sorry about your cancer, kids, but Joe got his ass kicked in a bar fight last night and doesn't feel like getting out of bed?' This was your idea. Your stupid rule about us having a cover. No one else would care if the Jonas Brothers just faded away," Nick snaps. It's his fear and frustration talking, and Joe wishes he could keep his promises for more than five seconds, to be easier on his brothers.

Joe tugs Nick down close, it hurts like hell, he's pretty sure Nick has an elbow in a broken rib, but it's worth it, to appease Nick, to bury his nose in Nick's hair and feel Kevin shift to embrace them both.

It's not something they ever would have done Before, but it feels like old times anyway. Being sandwiched between his brothers like this feels like as close as Joe is ever going to get to truly going home again.

*

Kevin comes into the bathroom while Joe's inspecting his injuries. His chest is now covered with bruising, and several of the gauze pads taped to him have bled through.

"We need to talk."

Nick slips in beside Kevin and starts fussing with the fresh bandages laid out on the counter.

"One of these days you're gonna get yourself killed and we can't, you can't. Nick and I can't-"

Joe meets Kevin's eyes in the mirror. "They're still out there, Kev. You want to just give up? After everything we've lost? Everything _you_ lost? Dani-"

"Don't talk to me about what was taken from me, Joe. I know exactly what's been lost. Better than you ever could, better than you ever will, living your life playing make believe-"

" _Kevin_ ," Nick barks sharply, appalled. Kevin just keeps talking like he didn't hear Nick at all.

"-But I can't lose any more. I won't let anything else be taken from me. I cannot lose you, Joseph. Either of you. This has to stop."

Joe bites his lip. It hurts more than it should, and Joe realizes he's reopened a cut. He turns to face Kevin. "Don't you care about catching whoever ruined our lives? About getting-"

"Revenge?" Kevin asks, raising his eyebrows. "No. I don't care about revenge. Or justice, if you're going to keep pretending that's what you're after. I get that this, hanging out with roadies and getting into fights, is a coping mechanism for you, but I want to move on. I want to live here with you guys and not have to keep an infirmary stocked. I want to be able to pick up a guitar again. I really, really don't want to bury anyone else."

Kevin's eyes are glittering. It's not an unfamiliar look on Kevin these past few years, especially lately. Joe knows his own eyes aren't precisely dry either. He looks down at his socks feeling ashamed.

"I don't want to hurt you, Kevin," Joe tells his feet, "We've all been hurt enough. But I don't know that I can just stop."

Beside them, Nick sighs and peels off one of Joe's bandages. The sting of it startles him.

"Can we compromise?" Joe asks.

"You want to spend all your time trying to track down the Idaho killer, you mean, instead of pretending to go out drinking and then sneaking around and doing it on the side," Nick says coldly, scrubbing at Joe's bloody side harder than is probably necessary.

Joe wants to defend himself, deny that his thoughts were running parallel to Nick's, that he's ever tried to investigate their family's case on his own, but he can't. He can't even feign surprise that Nick knew what he had been doing. But he also can't let this go, can't let the person who brutally murdered their family go free.

After a long silent moment, Kevin sighs. "Alright, Joe. But when they are caught, it's done. Forever."

Joe agrees easily. All he ever really wanted was to do, at least since the case went inactive, is catch his family's killer - now that he's openly being allowed to, he knows the perfect first step.

*

He sends his first tweet in almost three years while his brothers are in their rooms getting changed for the hospital benefit.

 _Tired of hiding from my fans. I'm back_

Nick and Kevin didn't know what he was planning, but now that it's done Joe will tell them. They won't like it at all, but they will have to keep speaking to each other during the charity thing. He and Nick are the only two people Kevin will probably talk to. Since Idaho, Kevin doesn't do strangers anymore.

Joe checks his appearance once more before heading downstairs carefully, leaning on his cane. His whole body aches like he has the flu.

He glances longingly down the hall at the perpetually closed door of the music room before calling out, "I'm in the car!"

Nick as it turns out is only a step behind him as Joe climbs gingerly into the limo they've booked for the day.

It isn't any different than any of the countless other limousines they've been in over the years, sleek and black inside and out, with bench seats facing each other across an aisle and another bench book-ending them.

"Joe," Nick starts as he slides in after his brother, "about the agreement with Kevin-"

"He's right." Joe says. It's been almost three years. "I wish I could let it go. I mean if Kevin can, I should be able to."

"You and Kevin are two totally different people," Nick says with wry affection. "And I'm not so sure that he's right."

Joe raises his eyebrows at Nick in surprise. Nick is ruthlessly practical and concerned for all of their safety. Or, he used to be.

"About me hanging out in bars pretending to be a tough guy and getting my ass kicked for information?"

Nick shakes his head. "About letting the Idaho killer get away with it."

Nick's voice shakes over the words "Idaho killer". They usually just call the person who murdered their family "they" or "them." Names have power and whoever committed that terrible tragedy already has enough power over the remaining Jonas boys. Also, "Idaho killer" is a stupid name.

Kevin climbs into the car then, and Joe doesn't really want to continue this conversation in front of him. Not on top of everything else that has gone on today and is coming up soon. Kevin doesn't need the added stress. Besides, Joe has a confession to make.

He waits until Kevin's settled back into a seat across from him and the driver has started to make his way down the hill that is their long private driveway before he speaks.

"I sent a tweet a little while ago," he tells his brothers matter of factly. He twists his hands in his lap, nervous of his brothers' reactions.

Kevin goes pale and his hands clench involuntarily.

Joe can feel Nick's stare boring a hole into the side of his face.

"Why... why would you do that, Joe?" Kevin asks, barely loud enough to be heard over the engine of the car.

"It's the easiest way to find, you know, them." Out of his peripheral line of vision Joe sees Nick open his mouth to say something. "I'm not gonna use myself as bait, I swear." Joe turns to look Nick in the eye, "I swear, Nick. I just want to open up the lines of communication."

Nick shakes his head and touches Joe's injured arm softly. "Don't you think they'll be on to you?"

"Not really. I mean, it's been three years-"

"It hasn't, Joe," Kevin interrupts. Joe turns to look at him.

"Almost, Kevin," Nick says apologetically.

"Two years, seven months, and twenty-three days," Kevin says mechanically.

"Yeah," Joe agrees. He doesn't understand Kevin's preoccupation with keeping exact track. It seems like that would only bring more pain, especially since he's apparently over the getting justice thing, but now isn't the time to fight about it. "My point is, it's been awhile. If we were going to lure them into a trap, it seems like we would have done it already. Also, weren't the FBI operating on the assumption that it was a crazed fan? If that's true, they'd probably still want to get into contact with us."

"I can't, Joe," Kevin says, his voice fracturing like glass. "I can't put myself back out there."

Joe reaches out and puts his free hand on Kevin's knee. "No one's asking you to. Either of you. This is my thing."

"Joe," Nick's tone is warning.

"I'll tell you - and the police - as soon as I hear anything," Joe insists. It's not like he actually wants to run into the insane person who killed five members of his family.

Kevin leans back in his seat and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath and lets it back out slowly. Joe's seen the action a thousand times in the last two years and eight months, especially lately. Kevin's trying to steel himself for being in public, being functional. He needs time.

Joe unsnaps his seat belt and slides across the limousine's narrow aisle, curling himself up next to Kevin. It hurts his ribs, but Kevin is more important than a few minutes of discomfort.

"Put your seat belt on," Kevin instructs without opening his eyes, a hint of alcohol on his breath. He's relaxing though, melting against Joe. Everything is fine.

Joe sees Nick take Kevin's other hand, rubbing at it the way he used to, back when they were still performing and Kevin's hands would stiffen and ache after shows.

By the time the limo slows to a stop and they slide out of the car, Kevin has his game face on.

It doesn't look like a game face. It looks like Kevin, kind and a little awkward, maybe a bit dull, but it doesn't look like the way Kevin looks now. Worried and broken, sharp, never entirely relaxed, and so, so fragile. He is a much better actor than anyone has ever given him credit for.

Reporters line what the event coordinators describe as "the green carpet" but is actually just the grass of a Beverly Hills park. Joe takes his place ahead of his brothers. He is still the frontman for his family even though they're no longer onstage. He's had to be. Kevin can't hear the word "Twitter" without flinching and Nick spends most of interviews clenching his jaw, his tolerance for bullshit buried with their youngest brother.

"Joe! Jonas Brothers!" An overly made-up woman who works for Extra Entertainment or Insider Access or whatever stupid half-hour gossip show gets slotted in between nightly news and game shows waves them over and holds up a microphone.

Joe pastes on a grin. "Hi, how are you?"

A camera turns its glare on him. He feels his brothers close ranks behind him.

"You just sent your first tweet in years. Would you like to tell us why? Exclusively?"

The press and public never learned of the connection between Twitter and the Jonas Family Murders. Joe has no intention of revealing it now.

He shrugs in a way that he knows people who don't have to deal with him on a daily basis find charming. "I meant what I said. No ulterior motive, I just missed it."

The lie falls gracefully off of his tongue. Lying got a lot easier for Joe after seeing his mother's mutilated corpse. There are some things other people just don't need to know, and have no right to ask.

Behind him, Nick touches the small of Joe's back lightly, a silent show of support that Joe leans into though his back protests the movement.

"Any chance you guys will rejoin Twitter too?" The question is asked of Nick and Kevin, but the reporter is still looking at Joe, holding the microphone out to him. So much the better, Joe wants to shield his brothers from talk of Twitter. He wants to shield them from all of this, from everything that could ever hurt them, but he will take what he can get. He laughs for the camera gamely.

"I don't want to speak for my brothers, but, probably not."

The reporter giggles coyly, leaning in close. Joe can smell her perfume. He wonders if he should ask her out.

"Joe!" someone calls from across the way.

He turns, Kevin leaning into him as he does. It's a comforting, grounding moment for both of them.

A petite, young woman with short dark hair is waving and walking quickly towards him. It is Kitty Fairbanks, a starlet Joe took to a very public fundraiser last week and nothing more.

She rushes into the shot, ignoring the annoyed huff of the reporter, and presses a kiss to Joe's cheek. Nick's hand fists into a ball at the small of Joe's back.

"Kitty, hi." She's pressed up close, leaning against his ribcage and it is really stunningly painful.

"You haven't called!" She teases, gazing up at him. The cameras are rolling. Joe's not sure if Kitty is clever or stupid, but right now he mostly wants to push her away. He should have taken a stronger painkiller before leaving the house.

The reporter looks at the camera smugly and asks, "Might we be seeing a new super couple coming together right in front of us?"

She's obnoxious and Joe is so going to ask her out once the cameras stop rolling. In front of Kitty if he can manage it.

"You never know," Kitty says at the same time Nick chuckles and says, "I don't think Joe's looking for anything serious."

It's hilariously awkward. Joe just smiles a smile he hopes is enigmatic. "Today is about raising money for some great kids. They are the real stars we should focus on."

"Oh, _Joe_ ," Kitty rests her head on his recently-relocated shoulder. Joe almost gasps in pain. She really has a knack for causing him agony considering they've been friendly acquaintances for less than a month.

"Cut," the reporter says. Nick lets go of Joe and he and Kevin step back. Joe steps away from Kitty and towards the reporter.

"It was really nice talking to you," he says. "I'd love to do it again sometime."

She smiles coyly and slips a business card into his hand. "My personal number is on the back."

It's not blatant, but they aren't being very subtle either, Joe knows that Kitty, Nick, and Kevin all saw it.

"I'll call."

*

Joe eases himself down onto the limo's seat and groans shamelessly. He really, really should have brought more painkillers with him.

Kevin sits down across from him, his hands shaking as he tries to buckle his seatbelt. It was a rough day. Too many strangers running around unsupervised. Too many kids, younger than they'd expected. There had been some toddlers.

Nick slides in last and looks at the both of them, shaking his head.

"You two are a mess," he observes with affectionate concern. Nick smiles softly but his eyes shine with worry. Then again, Joe can't pinpoint the last time Nick's eyes didn't.

"I'm fine," Kevin insists, though Joe knows that spending a day with strangers, with small children, has left him shaken and craving a drink.

"I hurt."

"On a scale of one to five, how much pain are you in, Joe?" Nick asks. Joe knows he's only being focused on because there is nothing Nick can do for Kevin right now. Not with no wine on him and such an auspicious date looming.

"Codeine."

Nick sighs.

"About a five," Joe tries again.

"Are you just giving me the answer that's gonna get you codeine when we get home?"

Joe appreciates the concern, he really does. But. "I don't want codeine specifically, Nick, I want to stop hurting. I just want some drugs and to soak in a warm bath."

Nick's face softens. "You're really alright?"

Joe nods.

"And you, Kevin?" Nick turns to question Kevin.

"I'm the same as always, Nick," Kevin says sadly. He toys with the ring he wears on a chain around his neck.

It has happened so many times that Joe feels like he should know how to help his big brother out of this. Now he just knows not to try. Instead Kevin's sadness, his two year, seven month, twenty three day old grief, extends to include him and Nick in its bubble.

Sorrow links them like a chain, binds them closer than brotherhood, maybe even closer than love.

They sit, still and silent, until their arrival at home allows the moment to be broken.

*

As Joe heads up the stairs towards the sweet relief of a bath, pain and impatience briefly tempt him to leave the bathroom door open rather than just unlocked, in the hope that a glimpse of his skin will be what presses his brothers into finally making their moves. But Joe knows better than to push. Besides, Kevin and Nick have seen so much of his skin over the years that they've no doubt become immune by now.

Thousands of replies to Joe's tweet await him when he checks in the moments between changing out of his dress clothes and going to hassle Nick for painkillers. He doesn't mean to sit down and start sorting through them, he really does want that bath, but he can't help it.

100 or so of the messages are from friends and "friends," welcoming him back and taking his tweet as a sign that his mourning period is over. They are wrong, and some of them massively deluded, but not psychotic.

Most of the messages seem to be genuine enthusiasm from fans, lots of exclamation points and "welcome back"s and "sorry for your loss"es.

Joe comes across a handful of creepy tweets, though, and copies them into a Word file. None of them remind Joe quite of the killer's tone but he's learned his lesson - even if it did take five people's lives to do it - better safe than sorry.

He has the killer tweets saved in a file password protected and hidden because he didn't want Nick or Kevin stumbling across them. It's not a file he opens all that often, but more often than he thought he might. The ransom notes that killed his family are surprisingly effective motivators.

 _play "Move On" or your family will die._ what they assume to be the first tweet reads. It's possible that nicer, friendlier requests came first, but they were long gone by the time the cyber-crimes investigators started looking for them.

"Joe?" Nick asks from the doorway.

Joe flips his computer shut.

Nick walks into the room, frowning. "You hiding something from me?"

"Not really. There's just something I don't want you to see."

Nick snorts, clearly not understanding the distinction.

"It's the Idaho case," Joe gives in because he knows he will eventually cave to Nick and he may as well save them both some time and energy. "Mom and Dad's case. I just, you shouldn't have to see it. Kevin shouldn't have to know I have it."

"Kevin shouldn't know you have what?" Kevin asks, leaning in the doorway. He's got a half-finished glass of red wine in his hand, with his tie discarded and his collar unbuttoned he seems more relaxed already.

Joe tries to remember back to when his brother was a calm, outgoing, friendly guy. Before he was tense and jagged and scared all the time and needed to use wine to lubricate his emotions. Before he spent his days trying to figure out which fan he pissed off at a meet and greet enough to make them murder his wife and unborn child. That other Kevin is a distant memory. It doesn't matter, though, Joe loves his brother fiercely, regardless of the ways they've all changed.

"That Joe has a file on the case," Nick reveals. "The tweets. The pictures?"

Joe nods helplessly. He doesn't look at the pictures their enraged fan tweeted of their family's mutilated bodies often, the images feel etched on his retinas, but he keeps them anyway. He isn't all that sure of why. For clues, he supposes. Or punishment.

Kevin lifts his glass to his mouth and takes a drink. "Oh."

"Kevin, I just-" Joe stammers to try to explain himself.

"No. You were right. I shouldn't know that. How could you, Joe? How could you bring pictures of my dead wife into our home?"

"Kev," his name comes anguished out of Nick's mouth.

Kevin pulls Nick in and holds him close, beckoning to Joe with his wineglass, anger already forgotten in the quest for comfort.

Stiff with residual pain and hobbling over to them, Joe embraces his brothers. He keeps hoping that if he can just hold on to them tight enough for long enough that maybe everything will be okay again.

*

Nick is snoring softly in Joe's ear, but Kevin is who Joe fell asleep next to. He sits up carefully and fumbles for his glasses and cane, brushing a kiss against Nick's ear before quietly leaving the bedroom.

There are two places Kevin would reasonably be at this hour, aside from bed, but Joe strongly suspects that Kevin is not reading in his room. He's been too erratic lately, consumed with an upcoming anniversary that Joe and Nick don't know how to help him through.

He gingerly makes his way down their slippery grand staircase, cane tapping along the marble floors. Joe certainly won't be sneaking up on Kevin, not if he is paying any attention at all.

There is no light blazing in the living room, but the door is most of the way closed. Joe is glad to have guessed right and not made the trek downstairs for nothing. He pushes the door open.

Kevin is sitting on the sofa staring blankly at the dark tv screen, a nearly-empty glass of wine dangling from one hand. There's a bottle not far away. Soon they are going to have to acknowledge Kevin's reliance on alcohol and do something about it, but not tonight.

"Kev?" Joe speaks softly into the darkness.

Kevin sighs. "Go back to bed, Joe. Nick will be missing you."

"He'll miss both of us, but that's alright, we'll be back soon," Joe says as confidently as he can.

Kevin turns his head to look over the back of the couch, as if to meet Joe's eyes, but instead Kevin looks past him. He takes a swig out of his glass. "I don't want to do this right now."

Joe limps a few more steps into the room, every physical ache in his body a reminder of the emotional pain in Kevin's.

"I know. I don't know how to help you," he admits, shrugging helplessly.

"Just go back to bed," Kevin says petulantly. "Be with Nick."

"Come with me," Joe pleads. He wonders sometimes if this is the way he is going to lose his big brother. He tries so hard to hold on to Kevin, but it always feels like Kevin is slipping through his fingers one jagged piece at a time. "Let us take care of you."

Kevin shakes his head and sighs the most bereft sound Joe has ever heard. "I miss them every day."

Joe comes around and sits next to his brother.

"I do too." He sees anger spark in Kevin's eyes and continues hurriedly, "Not the way you do, of course not, but we all loved Dani, Kevin. We would have loved the baby too. So much. You know that."

Kevin's free hand clutches at Joe's. Joe turns his hand palm up so that he can rub comfortingly at Kevin while they hold hands. They sit in silence matching their breathing to each other, Joe thumbing circles into the back of Kevin's hand.

The moments stretch longer and longer until finally Joe breaks them.

"No one is trying to replace anyone, Kevin. We don't want to, and even if we did, we know we couldn't."

Kevin sighs again, a soft harumph of acknowledgement. It's enough.

"Come on," Joe says a few minutes later. "Come to bed."

Kevin stands, says, "Nick will be waiting," and goes to put his wine away.

Joe feels like he's accomplished something, tenuous though it may be. He isn't certain of what, or how long it will last, but it feels like a breakthrough nonetheless.

He and Kevin walk back upstairs quietly and slip into bed on either side of Nick. He mumbles in his sleep and nuzzles into Kevin.

"Everything okay now?" he asks, mostly asleep.

"Yeah," Joe whispers.

"Yes, go back to sleep," Kevin echoes.

Joe reaches out for his brothers and closes his eyes.

*

The next afternoon, Joe calls up the reporter and asks her out. There's no reason to play games, maybe she's looking to be his one and only, but mostly she's looking to be seen on his arm. It's cool with Joe, he's only looking to be seen out with another beautiful woman. The last thing he wants is someone to invade his life, his and Nick's and Kevin's hard-won privacy.

Nick and Kevin are both in the kitchen with him when Joe pulls out the business card and punches the number into his phone.

"Hi, April? It's Joe, we met yesterday?"

She's pleasant, plays it cool but interested, but Joe is paying more attention to the way Kevin's shoulders slump as he washes up his breakfast dishes, the way Nick's slamming cabinets shut and hurling ingredients down onto the counter. He's going to break something.

"Would you like to go out tonight?"

Nick pounds a skillet down onto the stove furiously.

April would love to go out tonight, but she has to work. She's free after 11, is that too late?

Watching Nick's strong shoulders as he rends an egg apart, Joe makes plans to meet the pretty reporter for a late cup of coffee and maybe a bite to eat.

Neither of his brothers says anything once Joe ends the call. He'd like to be the one to clear the air, to point out reasonably that at least one of them should pretend to be normal. They're attractive, famous multimillionaires, they should be dating all of the gorgeous women that they can. He'd like to say that she's just a screen, they're all just screens, no one's going to take me from you, no one could, I love you. But he can't. He can't say those things aloud without watching all of his hopes and dreams for the future turn to dust. Joe's not going to lose his brothers. Especially not on some stupid technicality because he can't stand awkward silences.

They spend the day in one of those awkward silences, though the awkwardness settles after awhile. They're three people in a ridiculously large mansion; their afternoons often take on a quiet loneliness, as much as Nick tries to negate it by keeping close.

Joe's not relieved, exactly, to get ready for his date, but he's never done as well with silence as his brothers do. He doesn't know why they expect him to.

He meets April at a very trendy coffee house after she's finished at the station. She's prettier when she's not tarted up for t.v., her wavy blond hair tossed over a shoulder, green eyes bright with interest. They share a nice cup off coffee and he kisses her amid camera flashes in the parking lot.

He won't be calling her again. It's nothing personal, he never calls any of them again.

Kevin's waiting for him when Joe gets home. Nick is holed up in his room. He's not done sulking about Joe dating yet, but then Joe hadn't expected him to be. They're all just waiting for the moment when they are all ready for this.

"How was it?" Kevin asks as he and Joe walk upstairs, a supportive hand under Joe's elbow. Joe's not quite ready to be walking without a cane though he'd opted to do without it for his date.

"Surprisingly enjoyable," Joe admits.

"So will you call her again?"

Joe snorts. "Of course not. Do I ever?"

Kevin sighs. "Some day you're gonna find the right girl, Joe. I just want you to be open to the possibility that-"

"I won't, Kev." Joe cuts him off, stopping on the stairs and turning to look his older brother in the eye. "How many times do I have to tell you that this is it? You and Nick are the only people who are ever gonna get me. You're the only people I need. The only people I want."

"Joe-"

"Kevin, stop." Nick says from the top of the stairs. Joe hadn't expected his presence, much less his intervention. "Leave Joe alone."

"You guys are young. You're going to meet people who make you feel..." Kevin lapses into silence, fingering the wedding ring he wears on a chain around his neck.

Joe tugs Kevin close, wraps his arms around him.

Nick comes down to meet them, fitting easily on to the shared stair of their ostentatiously grand staircase and wrapping around Kevin's other side and making soothing noises low in his throat.

The three of them stand in the middle of the staircase clinging to each other and rocking back and forth for a long time.

"Bedtime," Joe says finally, and steers Nick and Kevin upstairs into the master bedroom.

Normally Joe would go get his pajamas out of his room, would wash his face and brush his teeth. Tonight he's unwilling to leave his brothers. He strips down to his boxers and then curls close around Kevin, brushing knuckles with Nick on his other side.

*

Joe doesn't know what to do with all the free time he suddenly finds himself having. He had dedicated a lot of his days to workouts which are now mostly off limits because Kevin doesn't think he has healed up enough to go pushing himself. Oddly, going downstairs to the music room doesn't occur to Joe at all, except in the passing thought it has been a very long time since he filled his days with music.

"Joe?" Nick sticks his head into Joe's room as he's idly clicking through MySpace. "You busy?"

"No, come on in." He flips his computer shut. "What's up?"

Nick closes the door behind him and sits on the bed that is only there for show. "It's Kevin."

"The drinking or the baby's birthday?" Joe asks, resigned. Kevin has some problems and Joe is at a loss for how to help with any of them.

"The baby's birthday," Nick sighs heavily. "I don't know what to do. How to help. He needs-"

"We talked the other night," Joe says.

"What happened?"

"He needs to know that it's okay to move on, and that we're not going anywhere. We're..." Joe trails off. It's Nick, who he can tell anything to, but he's not sure he can say this. Put it out there. He bites his lips.

"We're waiting," Nick finishes softly. "We're waiting for him."

"Yeah," Joe whispers. The acknowledgement of what's between them, that Nick is willing to speak it aloud, it matters more to Joe than he ever would have guessed. It has been years of longing, but Joe has never wanted to kiss his brave, gorgeous, brilliant little brother more than he does at this moment. "Nick."

If it were anyone else in the world, Joe would be embarrassed of the way his voice sounds, tight and rough and needy.

"We're waiting, Joe," Nick repeats firmly. "We're not going anywhere, we're waiting for Kevin."

*

 _Missin you all. missin music_ Joe tweets one evening because he feels like it. He is surprised at the realization of how isolated from music he has become, and even more surprised that he can still miss the thing that got his family killed. Then he goes out for a swim, because it's pretty much the only exercising he can do without hurting his still-healing knee and shoulder.

  
*

"Do you think I should go out tonight?" Joe asks randomly over breakfast one day. He toys with the crusts of his toast, a grown man and still unwilling to eat them.

"I'm assuming that by 'go out' you don't mean to dinner," Nick says wryly.

Kevin looks over his newspaper at Joe. "You haven't even healed up from last time, yet."

Joe had meant going back to the bar he hangs out at, buying a couple of rounds of drinks for the roadies who frequent the joint, and seeing what information might spill out of their chemically loosened lips. Not going out to dinner. But Kevin is right. His body isn't healthy enough for him to be getting into fistfights with assholes. And a fancy dinner out with his brothers sounds pretty awesome, actually. Like it might be just the thing that makes everything fall into place.

"You want to go out to dinner?" Joe asks. "Let's go. Suits, ties, it'll be fun."

"Yeah?" Nick sounds doubtful, but he is as close to beaming as Nick is capable of getting.

"Why not? Come on, Kev, what do you say?"

"Me?" Kevin looks up, surprised. "I, sure, I think you guys should go to dinner."

Nick sighs. "You too, Kevin. The three of us."

"Oh. I. I don't -" Joe knows that Kevin is thinking about what tomorrow is, weighing the dead against the living. He has resigned himself to another rejection when Kevin surprises him. "Yeah, okay. Sounds good."

Nick grins bright and young. "It's a date."

God, Joe hopes so.

*

It's silly, how long Joe spends primping for a date with his brothers. He can't decide which suit, and then which shirt, and then which tie. And normally he'd shout for Nick -if he wants to look classic- or Kevin -if he's feeling cutting-edge- but he's dressing for them, so it seems unfair to drag them into his dilemma.

Eventually he settles on a classic suit and a kind of funky tie, debates shaving and opts for not, puts in his contacts, and is finally ready, more or less on time.

Nick's waiting, leaning against the pool table in the game room and looking. Well. Joe came to terms with the fact that he thinks Nick is one of the hottest things in the world a long time ago. His mouth doesn't actually water, but he _wants_. More than he has in a long time he wants Nick, in all the ways that he already has Nick and all of the ways he isn't allowed to have him. Yet.

Kevin is only a few moments behind Joe, dress shoes clicking down the marble staircase as he palms a last little bit of gel into his hair.

Next to Joe, Nick straightens up at the sight of Kevin. Joe wants to skip the whole dinner, date, talking, first kiss business and drag his brothers straight back upstairs to bed. Kevin has forgone a tie, leaving his dress shirt open a few tantalizing buttons, though the rest of him is perfectly turned out. Much more than that, Kevin looks like Kevin again. For the first time since they stepped off of that Idaho stage, Kevin's smile reaches his eyes, he looks comfortable, and Joe wonders if maybe that, more than anything, is what he has been working for all of these months.

"Looking good, guys," Kevin compliments them. His eyes linger, giving Joe a really good feeling about tonight. "Who's driving?"

Nick volunteers so that both of his brothers can drink. Joe feels guilty, like he's the man here. He asked them out, he should do the driving and the paying. But he also feels like getting sloppy on wine and sprawling all over his brothers until they are willing to admit that they love him back.

They have reservations at some see-and-be-seen restaurant down by the beach, a place Kitty Fairbanks mentioned while angling for a date number two. Joe picked it because he wants to be seen, wants to show Nick and Kevin that the three of them can go out without it being anything but enjoyable. He desperately hopes that it is in fact possible. Joe's not sure he will get another chance like this.

A valet spot has been held for them and, though the restaurant is crowded, they're instantly seated at a table with a view. Apparently the Jonas name does still hold a certain amount of weight in Los Angeles.

The restaurant is a little bit like a red carpet and Joe recognizes almost everyone around them. Including Miley Cyrus.

He tries to get Kevin and Nick to switch spots, so that Nick doesn't see her and she doesn't see Nick. In Miley-time, girl-time, actual time, it hasn't been all that long since Nick left Miley at the altar, just turned around and walked away.

Joe knows that in Nick's head, and his and Kevin's, it didn't feel like a big deal and seems to have happened in another life. But really, it's been little more than a year since Miley stood surrounded by flowers in a pretty ivory dress and watched her first love's retreating back as he strode away from their shot at happily ever after.

A year after his parents' death, Nick was trying to find something to hold onto. Someone to keep living for. And Miley had been there, holding his hand and crying in public and being what they both thought he needed. So Nick got down on one knee and asked Miley for forever and started making plans for their own private kingdom. But then Nick realized that he had his brothers, who were what he needed without even knowing it and were already bound to him for life, and walked away.

Joe doesn't move quickly enough though -- it seems he's never in his life moved quickly enough to prevent the bad things from happening -- and across the room he sees Miley see them. Her face falls and then hardens into something mean and ugly as she stands. Joe grips at Nick's forearm to get his attention.

Miley is making a beeline towards them. She looks good. At 20 she has stopped trying to look older than her age and has gained self-confidence and poise of her own instead of constantly acting it.

Beside him, Nick gulps nervously and starts to stand.

"No. Don't get up," Miley's voice is cold, her features hard and furious.

"Miley," Nick says. "It's good to see you. I'm glad you're-"

"What are you doing here?" She asks in a low hiss.

Joe knows the wrong answer is 'eating dinner', and he's pretty sure that Nick knows it too. But he's equally as confident that neither of them have the right answer for Miley.

"How are you, Miles?" Kevin asks.

"I was better before you three showed up here," Miley snaps. She turns to look at Kevin, face softening slightly. "How are _you_ , Kev?"

Kevin's smile is genuine. One of the first Joe's seen in three years. His eyes are somewhat shiny, but they're smiling too.

"I think the worst of it is finally over now."

Miley smiles. It's a small one, but Joe doesn't think she's faking. "I'm glad to hear that, Kevin. Really. I'm glad all of you are doing alright."

"Miley," Nick tries again, "I-"

"Don't, okay?" Her voice isn't cold anymore, just tired and sad. She shakes her head. "I understand. You were cruel and hurtful and the whole thing was awful, but, I understand."

Nick toys with a breadstick, unable to meet Miley's eyes. Joe doesn't blame him. He thinks that if it were Demi standing there, he'd probably be hiding under the table. And he didn't do anything so heinous to Demi as leaving her at the altar.

"Thank you," Nick says softly.

Miley nods and walks away without saying goodbye. It's only fair, really.

In her wake, an awkward silence descends.

Nick keeps toying with his bread and Kevin sips at the wine he'd ordered almost before they sat down. Joe runs his fingers absently through his gelled hair, making a mess of it, and exhales.

"So," Kevin says with some effort after a few minutes, "how about those Yankees?"

Joe just snorts with affectionate amusement, but for some reason Kevin's question sets Nick laughing. It's not long before they're all howling, getting curious looks from other patrons.

At last Nick sits back and wipes his watery eyes. "Sorry, I..."

"It's good," Kevin says. "I don't know the last time I laughed like that. It was probably with... Before."

Joe appreciates the effort Kevin is putting into moving forward tonight. It's good to know that Kevin even wants to move forward.

Dinner itself is unremarkable, as it so often is at places like this that get buzz for being hotspots, but the company and conversation are incredible. Kevin stops after three glasses of wine but still manages to smile and talk with his hands, excited and animated. Nick won't stop smiling, casually touching both Kevin and Joe as he talks, light little gestures that foreshadow so much more. For his part, Joe gets sloppy on white wine, going quiet with all the effort and love he's focusing on his brothers as he tries to keep his lips to himself.

Music has been playing discretely in the background all evening. Modern stuff, not necessarily theirs or Miley’s, but indie songs that are familiar enough that Joe could sing along to it if he wanted to. And the sloppier he gets, the more he leans along Nick’s side, the more Joe wants to sing.

He is harmonizing with Zooey Deschanel under his breath when Nick elbows him gently in the side and suggests, “Lets get out of here.”

Joe loves that idea. It’s the best idea he’s ever heard. Nick is totally the smart one.

“You’re totally the smart one,” Joe tells Nick as they all stand up. Kevin huffs an indignant laugh.

Nick smiles a little bit sadly and says, “I guess I should have cut you off before that last glass of wine?”

“No. I’m not drunk,” Joe explains to his doubtful brother. “I’m just… I'm pretty relaxed.”

Nick ‘mmmhmm’s softly as they walk out of the restaurant and Joe knows Nick doesn’t believe him. It’s frustrating. Especially since Joe isn't really drunk. He knows, though, that insisting will only further convince Nick that Joe is inebriated. Still.

“I can still use the word ‘inebriated’ in a sentence. I can still _pronounce_ the word ‘inebriated’. How drunk can I be?”

Nick laughs for real and Kevin bumps into Joe. “I think you just had one of those thoughts that you only said half of out loud.”

Joe shrugs.

“I know. It’s not important.” He bumps back against Kevin. “Love you guys.”

“Love you too,” Nick wraps his arm around Joe’s waist and leans in close against Joe’s other side.

*

Joe doesn’t want to disentangle from his brothers when the valet brings the car around. He wants to be close and warm, plastered between them both always.

He doesn’t say that, though, knows Nick will hear it as meaningless drunken rambling instead of as the stone-cold sober truth that it is. Instead he makes a grumbly noise when Nick lets go of him and then immediately calls shotgun.

Kevin laughs at him, but slides into the backseat without protesting and Joe triumphantly claims the passenger seat as his prize.

They’re quiet as they drive away from the restaurant, a comfortable anticipatory silence that grows more and more anxious as the car winds its way back inland.

“I had a good time tonight,” Kevin says finally, breaking the silence. “Thank you.”

“Night’s not over yet,” Nick says tensely. He sounds nervous, scared. Joe never wanted to be a thing his brothers could be afraid of.

“It can be,” Joe offers quietly. He doesn’t want the night to end in this car, he wants to go home, kiss his brothers goodnight, crawl into bed and see where that leads them. But more than that he wants his brothers to be safe and happy.

Nick turns to look at Joe, startled enough that the car jerks slightly under his control. “What? No. I-“

“Nick,” Kevin calls calmly from the back, “eyes on the road.”

Nick turns his attention back to the road and his uncomfortable stammering falls quiet as he concentrates on driving.

The silence thickens once more until by the time they reach the house it just feels like pressure to Joe. The weight of expectation and the wine buzzing in his head almost make Joe want to call the whole thing off, and go sleep in his own bed.

But Joe hasn’t slept alone since the night before Idaho. The thought of cold sheets and a dark room make him shiver unpleasantly. He never wants to have to do that again.

Nick looks over at him from the driver’s seat, all warm eyes and eager hope, and, just like every time Joe looks at Nick, something in him settles comfortingly.

They’re going to do this. Because they love each other and they want to.

Joe climbs out of the car and gazes up at the intimidating façade of their house, lights simultaneously making it shine bright white and shadowing it ominously.

They don’t have to do this. Sex can’t bring them any closer than they already are. It won’t keep them from abandoning each other, genetics and tragedy have seen to that. It isn’t a way to tell them that they love each other. Every breath and touch and song and tear for their entire lives says so. They want this. Sex between them will just be an additional eager greedy thing that they can have. A novelty in their new post-parents world.

Kevin puts a wine warm hand to the back of Joe’s neck, pushing him gently towards the house and the future.

Nick is tugging off his tie by the time Joe and Kevin enter the foyer. He takes one look at Joe and then is in Joe’s space, pinning him back against Kevin. Joe and Nick’s first kiss is lightening-quick, an unsatisfying brief press of lip to lip.

Seconds later, just to the right of Joe’s face, Kevin and Nick kiss slower and just as chaste, Joe sandwiched between them.

Another moment and Nick takes a step back, taking Joe’s chin in his hand and turning Joe’s face gently to where Kevin is waiting calmly, eyes sparkling for the first time in as long as Joe can remember.

Joe closes his eyes and leans in, wants this to matter, to mean something for both of them.

Their noses collide and Joe’s eyes fly open. Kevin is smiling and laughing kindly, and Nick has his arms crossed around his middle and seems to be trying to hold back gales of laughter.

Joe smiles too. He wants to see Nick red and disheveled from laughter, panting for breath.

“Go ahead,” he tells Nick. “It’s funny.”

It is, too. How hard Joe worked to get them to this moment only to freeze up and spaz out. How hilariously stereotypical that ultimately Nick was the suave one and Kevin was the comforting one and Joe is the one who has all three of them collapsing to the ground in a laughing pile.

As their laughter slows, Joe leans up, catching Kevin in an easy, smiling kiss. It feels exactly how Joe wanted it to, safe and warm and honey-sweet.

When the kiss ends, Nick is watching them thoughtfully. Joe reaches out to tousle his little brother’s hair.

They sit crumpled in a pile at the bottom of their stairs for a long time, trading kisses and gentle touches.

Eventually the cold of the marble floor starts to seep upwards into them, and Kevin coaxes them up off of the ground. Joe lets his brothers pull him up, the chill and awkward position having done no favors for his half-healed injuries.

Though it’s not necessary, Nick and Kevin both wrap an arm around Joe’s waist as they take the stairs up to bed.

[Part 2](http://incendiarywits.livejournal.com/63923.html)


End file.
